Chapitre Huit: Menteur

Lies can hurt, Sage knew from experience. Even little white lies. Ashton was wrong; a few small lies can hurt a whole lot of people. The little lies end up getting covered up by the bigger lies, and the bigger lies end up taking control of your life and before you know it, you’re in too deep to ever go back. You have to study and memorize each lie you create, otherwise you get too nervous. You’re forced to live the lie. You become the lie. But telling Ashton that would mean confessing to something far worse.

Because Sage was not an honest person. In fact, he was an outright liar, and he knew it. Jasper might not care very much, he might understand, but he couldn’t risk it with Ashton. He couldn’t risk disappointing that shy little face.

This wasn’t a path he’d chosen, he’d just grown up that way. They’d started small and innocent, at first, the lies. Just fibs really. It was when he was about twelve that he’d started to tell much bigger lies, at first to protect himself, later to get his own way. From twelve to fifteen it had been trial and error; what lies were easier to get away with? How could he control his expressions and suppress nervous twitches? What methods worked best for keeping the lies under control?

It had been addictive, realizing that he could have control over others this way, knowing that he could earn their trust and their kindness without lifting a finger. By sixteen he’d realized that he’d made a big mistake in the way he’d tried to lead his life, but at that point there was nothing to go back to. The intricate web of lies had been sewn so thick and tight that he sometimes couldn’t even tell the difference between something he’d actually done and something he’d merely claimed to do. He was trapped, and now he had to live with it.

Nowadays lying came so naturally to him that he doubted even a lie detector would be able to tell, because even if he was making things up on the spot, half the time he almost believed himself. Every falsehood he said sounded easily credible, and would be hard to disprove anyway.

He’d almost forgotten until just now, lying on this couch in the presence of the two people who he desperately wanted to claim were his friends. But that couldn’t be permitted. This past week had been blissful, but the boys on the volleyball team had given him a well deserved wake-up call. The only friends he should be allowed to have should be people just as fake as he was, that way no feelings would get hurt if one of them was found out.

Sage told himself this, but he didn’t know what to do. He’d have no one left if he tried to escape from these two now. He’d just have to pretend that he was their friend without getting too attached, at least until they got tired of him.

Because chronic liars didn’t deserve friends. And chronic liars could never hope to keep them long anyway, what with the constant lies and all.

The dramatic music revved up again as the movie credits started to roll, and Jasper turned off the TV. Sage peered over to see that Ashton had already fallen sound asleep, snuggled into a blanket on the floor. He looked like a kitten.

Jasper stood and glanced over at the sleeping boy too, fishing one of the couch’s throw pillows off the floor and crouching down, gently lifting the black-haired boy’s head, sliding the pillow under it. He looked up and shrugged at the bemused face Sage was giving him from the couch. He’s never have labeled Jasper as the gentle type.

Jasper stood up again and put a finger to his lips and Sage nodded weakly, pain spreading over his body at the sudden movement. He winced a little. Jasper left the room and the blonde glanced down at Ashton again.

The boy was sleeping peacefully. Sage smirked. The guy looked even more innocent than usual when he was asleep, his hands balled up into fists near his face and he took in even breaths.

“There’s something wrong with me.” Sage whispered to himself.

That was an understatement. There were tons of things wrong with him, with his life, with his personality…everything. His lies were one thing, and then there was his violent alcoholic father, who drank to forget about his deserter of a mother, who’d left when Sage was six because his father was violent and an alcoholic to begin with. So one could gather from that problem alone that the blonde had abandonment issues, a terrible father figure and a serious problem with commitment of any kind.

And that was just family.

There was the money problem of course; his Dad had lost his job a while back because of his drinking habits and had only recently been hired again by a different company, so they didn’t have a lot of money right now. Sage had a savings account waiting for him in the bank though. It had been slowly accumulating money for years, but he’d only been aware of it after a phone call from the bank a few months back. It didn’t take a genius to know that it was his Mom. It seemed as though she hadn’t completely forgotten about him, the ten grand he would receive when he turned eighteen was proof enough of that.

But his Dad couldn’t find out about it. If he found out then he’d probably get angry again…maybe go on a rant about his “cheating whore” of a wife who hadn’t left him a penny, but leaving his “good-for-nothing” son a wad of cash. Sage didn’t even want to think about the consequences that would follow. Just one more year…one more and he could move out, get a job and get away.

Those were just a few of the many problems in his life. But he didn’t want to think about them anymore. Just looking at Ashton’s calm, gentle face sleep away his own worries made Sage relax. Worrying about everything was pointless. Denial was far more stylish.

Jasper returned with a couple of blankets and pillows, tossing one of each to Sage and throwing the rest on the floor. He then opened a closet, only to reveal that it wasn’t a closet at all, but a double bed that folded up into a wall. With a great show of strength, the green haired boy yanked the thing down as quietly as possible and threw his sleeping stuff to one side. Then he crouched down and, with another display of strength, lifted Ashton up and carried him over to the bed, lying him down and covering him up with a blanket as if he was used to this.

“The guy could probably sleep through a hurricane,” Jasper whispered as he pulled of his shirt and tossed it to a corner of the room, “But we’re better off not taking any chances.”

Sage nodded and covered himself up as Jasper flicked off the light. There was no point in worrying about his problems tonight. What problems?

See? All better.

---

It turned out that the morning was far worse than the night before on the pain-scale. Sage had stupidly tried to get up by himself to go to the washroom, only to fall onto the floor in agony. It had felt like every bruise he had was being stabbed by thousands of tiny needles, who were been jabbed at him by some very unhappy people who had something against natural blondes, who were being paid to do it by some sadistic bastard hiding under his couch! Or something.

Luckily, it seemed Jasper was a light sleeper, for he leapt up at once in a groggy, half-dead state and almost carried the blonde there, then carried him back afterwards. By the time Sage had squirmed into a slightly less painful position on the couch and turned to thank the green haired boy, Jasper was already back in bed and dead to the world once more.

Not a morning person then.

Sage lay there for a while until he caught the scent of something very tasty. But instead of being stupid two times in a row, he decided to sit still and wait to discover what it was. About fifteen minutes later, Ashton had come bounding down into the basement, showered and dressed and very not dead to the world.

A morning person then.

The black haired boy tried in vain to rouse Jasper, who didn’t really respond to any of Ashton’s requests and only grumbled sleepily when he was shaken viciously and nearly shoved off the bed. In the end, Ashton merely huffed and turned to Sage, who he eagerly helped up to the kitchen for some breakfast.

It turned out that the lovely smell was in fact Ashton-made (as opposed to homemade) hash browns, scrambled eggs, breakfast sausages, bacon, sliced orange and a mountain of toast. A vegetarian’s nightmare, and Sage couldn’t be more delighted. Now THIS was a breakfast of CHAMPIONS!

So here he sat, helping himself to heaps of the seemingly endless supply of breakfast goodness that littered the counters and kitchen table, wondering just what to try and shove down his throat first.

“How the heck are we gonna finish all of this?” Sage exclaimed loudly, “We should take a picture of this, I mean it’s everywhere!”

Ashton blushed like he did at absolutely everything, wringing his hands with a nervous smile on his lips.

“W-well Jasper’s Mum buys this s-stuff because I told her I’m good at making breakfast,” he explained with a shrug, “And don’t worry, Jasper will eat it all. I don’t know where he puts it, but it’ll disappear somehow. It always does.”

Just then there was someone sprinting up the stairs, and a green-haired blur that Sage could only assume was Jasper grabbed itself a plate and started piling a mountain of everything on it.

“Jasper, it’s not going anywhere!” Ashton laughed as he brought his own already served plate to the table and sat himself down beside Sage, “You can go back for seconds…”

Eventually Jasper sat at the table, fork at the ready, and he seemed to have mentally counted to three before ravenously devouring it at a startling rate.

Sage tried to turn away as he wolfed down his own food, which was by far the best breakfast he’d ever eaten. It didn’t need salt, it didn’t need butter…and the fact that Ashton had already poured them some orange juice was helpful, because he’d already almost choked twice.

By the time he’d finished, gulped down the last of his juice and leaned back to bask in his fullness, he realized that Ashton was staring at him with an incredulous look on his face. He seemed to have mostly finished his much smaller serving, and Sage was sure that he and Jasper were quite distracting when they ate.

He turned to watch Jasper along with Ashton, and the shorter boy had been quite right; where DID Jasper put it all? Somehow or another, everything had disappeared.

“Wow, you sure showed that breakfast who was boss!” Sage announced as he looked around at all the empty plates in the kitchen, “It won’t be questioning your authority again, that’s for sure.”

“He whooped it good all right.” Ashton agreed, standing up and collecting the dishes, “And now I’m gonna whoop these dishes.”

Jasper chugged his glass of orange juice and slammed it back down on the table, squinting around at the room like he was wondering where it had come from. It took him about a minute’s worth of blinking before he seemed to register anything at all. Then he snapped awake like a squirrel on a sugar-high.

“I’ll do the dishes!” he exclaimed very suddenly, his face as expressionless as always but his eyes were rather wide, “It’s my house anyway, I can’t have guests doing everything! You guys go downstairs and play with the Dance Dance Revolution machine or something.”

Sage leapt up excitedly, ignoring the pain.

“He has a—”

“Yes.” Ashton said quickly as Sage started hobbling down the stairs, “But Jasper and I don’t dance, and you’re kind of undergoing repairs, so I don’t think…”

“Dance Dance Revolution!”

"But you're..."

"Dance Dance Revolution!!"

“Or you could do it anyway.” Ashton stood helplessly on the side as Sage limped through the forest of unused games and devices in the cluttered basement until the found the thing, covered in dust, just waiting to be used.

Sage got on the machine and turned it on, and somewhere between Ashton’s laughter and Jasper’s exasperated raised eyebrow, the blonde realized that he had yet to tell a single lie today. What was it about these two that kept him so honest?

Because…it felt kind of nice.

---

So Menteur Liar, for those who don’t know.

Special thanks to xAngel of SorrowX, Jordan Storm, SapphireIris and Gaki Toki! Reviews are what keep my stories going!